Anxiety of the Soul

Anxiety of the Soul

The Sunday night worry for the upcoming work week. The stress of being busy and overwhelmed, almost feeling like your heart is going to burst. This worry and anxiety of the soul leads you to the intense want to take something to help slow down your mind, temporarily masking and numbing the dread of being responsible. So much is going on in your life, and there is so much that you seem to be dreading. 

You are dreading doing paper work; you are dreading returning phone calls; you are dreading making phone calls; you are dreading replying to emails; you are dreading replying to text messages; you are dreading going to work; you are dreading going to work meetings; you are dreading going to the bank; you are dreading paying the bills; you are dreading doing yard work; you are dreading doing anything and everything that requires you to be responsible; you, in a sense, are dreading doing life. Because of such anxiety, it has led your mind to the intense craving of relief which can only come through the Opiate escape. You know that Opiate can slow your thinking, allowing you to live in the moment more fully with your wife and kids. All the day long you have been around your wife and kids, but you haven't really been around them because of how far off your mind has been wandering towards Opiate and his escape. You don't feel like you can be happy at all, and you even caught yourself thinking about how lucky your grandfather was to be the age that he is - because that means that he is close to being able to rest from all of this. What poor thinking this is, and you've had such thinking before, and you do realize that it will pass, but hopefully you can escape through Opiate so that it can pass quicker than just waiting the anxiety out. But you don't want to take the Opiate; you want to get through this anxiety spell so that you can win this WAR that you are involved in, as apposed becoming a causality, and losing the WAR. You have been spending time on your knees all day long- lost in prayer, begging, and even pleading that you will make it around the anxiety and Opiate thought so that you can feel the peace of the spiritual once again. Last night you felt the comfort of spirituality, but today-on this Sunday, and even during church the darkness started to creep in, and the anxiety and worry concerning the upcoming week settled in, and then within an instant the Opiate thought had made its way deep into your mind, then creating the head prison that Opiate always seems to create, which is the locked away mind frame, where nothing else seems to matter, not even your wife and kids, but only the Opiate. How sad is this? That you can't even be involved with your wife and kids on this Sunday afternoon because of the ongoing anxiety of your soul, which then gives way to an Opiate craving that comes first, and before anything else; even to your own blood Opiate comes before. The power of the anxiety worrisome soul, coupled with the memory of Opiate helping to relieve the anxiety worrisome soul, creates an internal WAR that literally makes you physically ill, where you even have cold chills. Everyone in your family asks you what it is that's wrong with you; and your only reply being that you aren't feeling well, though your wife knows whats really going on with you because she knows you all too well. Scripture study quiets it down, but the anxiety still remains, making it so that you can't even get into the scripture study experience because of how loud the Opiate whisper seems to be. His presence within your mind won't allow any light to shine through, though the thought of Christ suffering all the pains that we have suffered through his atoning sacrifice in the Garden and on the Cross does give you comfort and hope-because it is comforting to know that he has felt exactly what you are currently feeling. And that He has gone below all of our suffering, taking up our infirmities on himself so that we may come to be healed through his infinite atonement. This single thought concerning the Christ has now led you to wanting to fight the WAR because you now realize and remember that He would never allow you to experience something that you could not handle. The thought to get outside, and to go create an experience for yourself through being physically active has creeped into your mind; and though it is currently tough to see yourself moving in this direction, you do end up making your way to a track in hopes of furthering that small speck of light that has entered into your mind-hopefully advancing that light into more light so that you can be free from the shadows of Anxiety and Opiate. You feel that if you can get jogging, trying to direct your thoughts towards gratitude and prayer, and coupled with the endorphin lift that the exercise can give way too, then just maybe you can come back to life here at the track on this Sunday afternoon; and then just maybe you can go back to being the kind, fun loving Dad that you were just yesterday afternoon.